Jn 4:4-6 In this Gospel reading the holy Evangelist most fully shows us that our Lord Jesus Christ assumed the weakness of the human race. For after he had said that the Lord came into a city of Samaria called Sychar, near the field which Jacob gave to his son Joseph, and that in that field was Jacob’s well, he added: “Jesus, being wearied from the journey, sat thus upon the well.”
That field which holy Jacob left to his son Joseph, I think was left not so much to Joseph as to Christ, whose figure the holy patriarch Joseph bore — he whom truly the sun worships and the moon and all the stars bless. For this reason the Lord came to that field, that the Samaritans, who claimed for themselves the inheritance of the patriarch Israel, might recognize their true possessor and be converted to Christ, because He has become the legitimate heir of the patriarch.
Jn 4: 6 cont. Jn 4:7 The Evangelist says: “Jesus therefore, being wearied from the journey, sat thus upon the well.” The mysteries (sacramenta) of the Gospel, signified in the words and deeds of our Lord Jesus Christ, are not open to all. Some, interpreting them less carefully and less soberly, often assert what leads not to salvation but to ruin, not to the knowledge of truth but to error. Thus there is mystery in what is written: that the Lord came at the sixth hour to Jacob’s well, sat down weary from His journey, asked drink of a Samaritan woman, and the rest which is written there and must be examined and discussed.
First of all, in all the Scriptures we must guard with the greatest vigilance that the exposition of the divine mystery be according to the faith.
Therefore our Lord came to the well at the sixth hour of the day. I see in the well a dark depth; I am thus reminded to understand the lowest parts of this world — that is, earthly things — to which Jesus came at the sixth hour, that is, in the sixth age of the human race, as in the old age of the old man, whom we are commanded to put off so that we may put on the new man who is created according to God (Eph 4). For the sixth age is old age: the first is infancy, the second childhood, the third adolescence, the fourth youth, the fifth maturity.
Thus the life of the old man, which is carried on according to the flesh under temporal conditions, is concluded in the sixth age — that is, in old age — because in the old age of the human race, as I have said, the Lord our Creator and Restorer came to us, so that, with the old man dying, He might establish the new man in Himself and, stripped of earthly clay, transfer him to the heavenly kingdom.
The well, therefore, as said, signifies the dark toil and error of this earthly world. The Apostle says: “Though our outward man is corrupted, yet our inward man is renewed day by day” (2 Cor 4). Most rightly, since all visible things belong to the outward man, to which Christian discipline renounces. The Lord came at the sixth hour — that is, at midday — when the visible sun begins to decline toward setting, and we, called by Christ to the love of invisible things, have the inner man renewed and return to the interior light which never sets, according to the apostolic teaching, seeking not the things that are seen but the things that are not seen. “For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal” (2 Cor 4).
That He came weary to the well signifies weakness, and this shows humility: for He took upon Himself the weakness of the flesh for us and deigned to appear so humbly as man among men. Of this weakness the prophet says: “A man in suffering and knowing how to bear infirmity” (Isa 53). Of humility the Apostle speaks: “He became obedient unto death” (Phil 2).
Yet the fact that He sat down — since teachers are accustomed to sit — can also signify not humility alone but the person of the Master.
It may be asked why He asked drink from the Samaritan woman, who had come to draw, when afterward He proclaimed that He could give the abundance of a spiritual fountain to those who ask. But God knew the faith of that woman. And since she was a Samaritan, Samaria often bears the image of idolatry. For they, separated from the people of the Jews, had given the honor of their souls to dumb idols — golden calves. Our Lord Jesus came to bring the multitude of the Gentiles, who had served idols, into the unity of Christian faith and incorrupt religion. “They that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick” (Matt 9).
Therefore He thirsts for the faith of those for whom He shed His blood.
Jn 4:7 cont. Jn 4:8 He said to her, “Woman, give me to drink.” And as the Lord knew what He thirsted for, shortly after His disciples came — who had gone into the city to buy food — and said to Him, “Rabbi, eat.” But He said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know.” They said among themselves, “Has anyone brought Him something to eat?” Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work" (cf., Jn 4:31-33).
Is anything else understood here but the will of the Father who sent Him, and His work which He wished to complete — namely, that He might convert us to His faith from the destructive error of the world? Such as His food is, such also is His drink. For in that woman He thirsted in order to do the Father’s will in her and complete His work.
Jn 4:9-15 When she responded carnally, “How is it that you, being a Jew, ask drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” He answered, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that says to you, ‘Give me to drink,’ you would have asked of Him, and He would have given you living water.”
This “living water” we rightly understand to be the gift of God. As John testifies elsewhere: “If anyone thirst, let him come to Me and drink” (John 7). And again: “He who believes in Me, as the Scripture says, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.” This He said of the Spirit which those who believed in Him were to receive.
Thus the river of living water which He wished to give her is the reward of the faith which He first thirsted for in her.
Jn 4:16-24 When she said, “Lord, give me this water,” still understanding carnally, He said, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” He knew she had no husband. The five husbands, some interpret as the five books of Moses. But there is another understanding: the five husbands signify the five bodily senses — sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch — by which the first age of man is necessarily governed.
When one comes to the age capable of reason, he ought no longer to be ruled by these senses, but to have as husband the rational spirit — the spirit of man — which governs the senses and subjects the body. For “the head of the man is Christ” (1 Cor 11). When the human spirit adheres to Christ, the Word becomes its lawful husband.
But if error rules in the soul, like an adulterer in the absence of understanding, then the devil dominates. Therefore He says, “Call your husband,” that is, let your understanding be present. For “no one knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him” (1 Cor 2).
Jn 4:25-40 After five carnal responses, in the sixth she names Christ: “I know that Messiah is coming.” Messiah in Hebrew is “anointed”; in Greek, Χριστός (Christos). When He said to her, “I who speak to you am He,” she left her water jar and ran to the city.
The water jar — ὑδρία (hydria), from ὕδωρ (hydōr), water — signifies perhaps the love of this world, by which men draw pleasures from the dark depth of earthly life and, having tasted them, burn again with desire. Therefore, leaving the hydria, she left worldly desire.
She first believed; then she preached. Let those who wish to evangelize cast down the hydria.
Jn 4:41-42 Many believed because of her testimony. Later they said: “Now we believe, not because of your word, for we have heard for ourselves and know that this is truly the Savior of the world.” First through report, afterward through presence.
So it happens today with those outside. Christ is announced by the Church; they believe through her testimony; He abides with them “two days,” that is, gives the two commandments of charity; then many more believe firmly that He is truly the Savior of the world.
Jn 4:43 ff. After two days He departed. For He Himself testified that a prophet has no honor in his own country (Luke 4). Having strengthened the Samaritans — that is, the Gentiles — in faith and charity, He returns in the last days to His own country, where He had not yet had honor.
In His homeland He performed miracles and they did not believe; in Samaria He performed none, yet they believed at the testimony of one woman. Thus the Church believed in the Son of God through apostolic preaching rejected by the synagogue. Hence in His earthly homeland few believed — so few that many of His disciples went back and walked no more with Him (John 6).
Yet greater works were done afterward: the faith of the whole world through apostolic preaching — greater than the works Christ did in Judea, where He saved very few. As He said: “He who believes in Me will do the works that I do, and greater than these will he do” (John 14).
Thus the harvest sown in tears by the patriarchs and prophets was reaped by the apostles; and from a few grains cast forth the whole world was sown.
CONTINUE
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